A Murder Scene We'd Like To See
by BrDPirateMan
Summary: We all know how Neku died.  But what if Neku could not be killed?  What if his killer failed miserably?  This is a brief insight on what would happen if Neku was never killed.  It's something that could turn the whole world upside-down...


**A Murder Scene We'd Like To See  
**by BrDPirateMan

Those of us who are familiar with the workings of the UG would know how Neku Sakuraba was but a pawn in The Composer's gamble with his Conductor. The Composer, assuming the guise of a young boy and calling himself Joshua, murdered what would be the unlikely hero Neku. How it all went you should know by now.

But what if this scene which set forth a chain of important events played out differently?

What if Neku wasn't killed? Or to be more precise…

…what if The Composer _could not_ kill him?

Joshua wanted Neku dead so that he could participate in the Reapers' Game and augment his fine plan, so there was no way he would get cold feet in killing him. Him suddenly developing a sense of guilt just before he wanted to do the dirty deed was out of the question.

It would thus be more of a matter of not being able to get the job done at all.

So how, you ask, would this scene occur?

XOXOXOXOXO

Silent loner. Lone wolf. Anti-social kid.

Those were all alternative names for Neku Sakuraba, who hated people and the world in general. Everyone had their own creeds, their own ways to live their lives.

Shunning company was his.

He couldn't care less about what the next person thought, and he hated it if anyone tried to even scratch the surface of his mind. Nobody had any right to know who he was or what he liked or whether he loved to play Tin Pin. He guarded his life viciously, and after a while, his friends… no, classmates at school learnt to never bother him with such matters anymore.

He was without friends and allies, but he didn't mind.

All he had to tide his days over was the beautiful graffiti mural with CAT's art on it. CAT… the most influential artistic power in Shibuya. A person whose talent knew no bounds. Neku longed to get closer to the one man who made his life just a little bit more colourful. CAT was his idol.

Today, just like every day before him, he was standing before that mural, examining the finer details with a meticulous eye, like he was some jewelry expert who was looking for the faintest of blemishes on a diamond. A small smile was on his face. The world around him mattered little, if at all. For a while, his troubles were forgotten.

However, the peace would not last long.

Hiding nearby in a dark alley was The Composer, also known as Joshua. He looked like a teenage boy, though his true age was definitely much more than just sixteen. His shockingly grey hair lay in wisps around his face.

In his right hand was a revolver, his index finger tapping along its side. Unlike most people who would hesitate and grow nervous, he was cool and calm. The very epitome of calmness. He was going to kill Neku, to make him his proxy. And he would definitely do it.

Without sparing another second, he stepped out of the shadows and sprinted towards his mark.

The target quickly noticed, though. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw this thin boy with strange hair in the distance, running towards him with gun in hand. Neku gasped. _A gun?_

Once Joshua was in range, at about a good few metres away, he dug his heel into the ground to stop. His mauve eyes had a malignant glint in them. In one smooth, unstilted motion, he raised his revolver, and…

BANG!

Joshua knew that he had won the moment Neku was in his sights and the trigger had been pulled. No one could escape a speeding bullet. As if in slow-motion, the bullet barreled through the air, screaming death as it went, as its orange-haired victim stared at his own demise in the making.

It was too easy.

At least, that's what Joshua thought.

However, in a strange twist for the unexpected, Neku swiveled his body to one side. The bullet clipped a few stray fronds of his hair, and as it lodged itself into a wall behind him, it occurred to Joshua that the bullet had actually _missed_.

He went wide-eyed with surprise, his mouth agape. _What happened?_

Did his target just _dodge_ a bullet? But that was impossible!

Neku turned towards his assailant with a penetrating glare. Even without any words spoken, it was clear what the message he meant to convey was: What the heck do you think you're doing?

_Tch!_ thought Joshua, indignantly. _I'm not giving up!_ In a fit of rage, he relieved the revolver of its remaining bullets in one go.

Five bullets coming at you in full force was supposed to be a guaranteed death. And what did Neku do in such a seemingly hopeless situation?

He dodged them. Like the protagonist in a certain cyberpunk film trilogy, his body bent over backwards until it was almost parallel to the ground. All the bullets without exception whizzed past him, _above_ his now horizontal frame. How he could do it was a question worth pondering.

Joshua watched this entire spectacle with no small amount of amazement. He had never seen any person, living or dead, do that before. Even his Reapers, with their special powers and abilities, were incapable of such a feat. Who was this boy? How did he learn to do this?

Neku straightened up, his gaze unchanging. But his aura seemed darker now. He didn't take kindly to people who wanted to know all about his life, much less those who sought to extinguish it altogether. He cared little about who his attacker was, but he knew that teaching him a good lesson was in order.

"Stop trying to hit me and hit me," he taunted, in a monotone that belay his growing anger.

Only the pathetic clicks of an emptied gun could be heard as Joshua pulled the trigger again and again in a panic. Neku snorted in contempt.

"If you're done, then it's my turn."

With ungodly speed, he dashed right at Joshua, looking like a purple-and-orange flash. Unable to react in time, the luckless killer ate a punch to the face from his intended victim. Joshua was sent sprawling to the ground. Despite being hit so hard, he got back on his feet miraculously quickly. Clutching his nose that was gushing with blood, he barely had time to counterattack before Neku rushed towards him once more, tearing up the very streets of Udagawa with his speed. Bits of concrete kicked up in his wake.

At the very last moment, before the second and final blow, there was only one thing on Joshua's mind.

_Damn, I should have brought along more bullets._

Neku's fist connected with his chin in a blazingly powerful uppercut. So powerful, in fact, that Joshua flew straight up to the skies where he appeared like a rapidly diminishing speck. Once he was out of sight, a satisfied Neku dusted his hands off and started to head down the streets, head bobbing lightly to the music from his headphones.

"I don't get people," he muttered to himself. "Never have, never will."

And so the emo kid, surrounded by people yet all alone at the same time, walked off into the sunset, another day gone by. Even though it was marred somewhat by the presence of his mysterious attacker, it wasn't a complete loss: having studied the CAT mural for a good while now, it finally clicked in his head how to draw graffiti the right way. He wanted to try it out. Tomorrow he would buy some cans of spray paint and then he would be in business…

In the meantime, Joshua was still hurtling through the stratosphere at a hundred miles per hour. And he was screaming, punching through countless clouds as he went.

His ascent slowed down as he lost momentum, and in the last few seconds of his flight, floating momentarily, he saw another strange sight.

Sitting among the clouds was a great being. He looked like an old man and was wearing a white robe. He had a balding head, with the hair all white, and his trimmed beard was neat. In an instant, Joshua realized who it was.

God! It was God whom he was looking at!

And He was relaxing and reading a book. Upon taking notice of Joshua who was still in mid-air at the time, He had a look of surprise on His face, but nonetheless gave a nonchalant greeting, "Oh hi, what brings you here, Composer? I thought you were supposed to be busy with the UnderGround."

But like the old saying goes, what goes up must come down. Before Joshua could reply, not that he could even if he wanted to because of his broken jaw, he dropped back to earth like a box of nails.

All God could do was shake His head and return to His book. "I can never understand that boy."

Joshua freefell back to the ground at a frightening speed. When he connected with the hard asphalt, landing in the very alley where his murder plan should go off without a hitch, the impact he made was tremendous. With the force of a nuclear weapon, he jabbed through the concrete and rock like a hot knife through butter. And much like a nuclear weapon, the sound was just as deafening. Rubble flew in all directions, collecting in a cloud so tall that everyone in Shibuya could see it. And when it finally cleared and people grew curious enough to investigate and take a look, they found a gigantic crater right in the centre of the Udagawa backstreets.

Unable to call upon his broken limbs, Joshua just lay where he landed, embedded a dozen metres in the ground. His life force slowly leaked away. Even for a powerful being like him, it was impossible to survive such a great fall. In his final moments as he started to dissolve in white static, he was dismayed to realize one thing:

He had lost the bet with his Conductor.

XOXOXOXOXO

Now that the Conductor had won against the Composer, he was free to take over his seat as ruler of the UnderGround. He became the new Composer.

To secure his victory in the bet, he had originally wanted to use an obscure plan to control every Shibuyan's mind by distributing special pin badges which would render them vulnerable to his control. But it looked like that wouldn't be necessary anymore, so he discarded the badges, and everything went back to normal in Shibuya… apart from that large crater in Udagawa, which has since become a tourist attraction. Meteorologists in particular favour this spot in their tireless quest to determine the identity of the asteroid that fell to Japan. Of course, there was no asteroid…

So Shibuya was safe from the Composer, Neku still loathed people, and Japan's tourism industry improved a little.

Why didn't Joshua succeed? The key factors to his utter failure were his overconfidence, underestimating Neku's abilities… and forgetting to bring more bullets.

Maybe if he had brought along a gatling gun the results would be far different.

Or maybe not.


End file.
